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Swedish furniture giant Ikea has built and donated a quake-proof school to one of the Italian towns that was severely damaged by tremors last year.

The Alfredo Quaranta school is located in the small Abruzzo town of Crognaleto in the Gran Sasso National Park. The area was among those badly hit by earthquakes between August 2016 and January 2017, when severe weather conditions compounded recovery efforts.

More than 60 local students aged between six and 16 will be taught in the school, which cost €500,000 and is furnished in a typical Swedish style, with plenty of bright colours in the interior.

Part of the funding for the project came thanks to around 7,000 of Ikea's Italian workers, who asked the company to use money earmarked for staff Christmas gifts to help earthquake victims instead.

Crognaleto is a small town home to around 1,300 people, but 60 percent of its total area was left damaged after the earthquakes and extreme weather conditions earlier this year. The town's two existing schools were both left unusable following the quakes in August 2016 and January and authorities have said they plan to demolish both structures.

Many schools across the entire affected region were badly damaged by the quakes, prompting concern over the stability of the buildings - particularly since some of the collapsed schools had supposedly been upgraded to modern anti-quake norms.